Egyptian Museum

Opened in 1902 on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the Egyptian Museum was created to keep Egypt’s antiquities under public guardianship after decades of excavation, trade, and dispersal. Its Beaux-Arts halls by Marcel Dourgnon bring together royal sculpture, mummies, and tomb equipment—including the treasures of Tutankhamun—so the collection reads as a long argument about power, ritual, and the afterlife. For many Egyptians it remains an emblem of the modern nation’s duty to its ancient past.